


A Bath

by OnlySlightlyObsessed1



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: 1k to 5k, Gen, Leonard McCoy Bingo, Prompt: bathing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-14
Updated: 2019-12-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:08:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21796600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnlySlightlyObsessed1/pseuds/OnlySlightlyObsessed1
Summary: She yelled back down the hall with all the haughty self-assurance of a four-and-a-half-year-old, “I KNOW!”
Relationships: Joanna McCoy & Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Comments: 20
Kudos: 24
Collections: Leonard McCoy Bingo





	A Bath

**Author's Note:**

> I'm practicing writing McCoy as a parent, this isn't connected to anything, but if it were, it would be a scene in the middle of a story. For the [Leonard McCoy Bingo](https://leonardmccoybingo.tumblr.com/)

Leonard swirled the water around with his hand and adjusted the temperature again.

“Joanna!”

She yelled back down the hall with all the haughty self-assurance of a four-and-a-half-year-old, “I KNOW!”

“Come on in here and get in the bath then!” He slammed the water shut and in the new quiet heard her footfalls on the hardwood floor of the hallway and then she appeared in the doorway, stark naked and giggling. She was covered head to toe in body crayon.

“Look,” she held out her arm, “a dragon!”

Leonard had no idea which of the purple squiggles were supposed to be a dragon, but the crayon bird he had drawn on her forearm earlier had been carefully circled in red as if she had carved out space for it so it wouldn’t get drawn over.

“It’s beautiful,” he said, “Ready to get in the tub? The water’s hot.”

Joanna climbed in without any fuss and immediately began sinking the toy boats lined up along the back ledge.

“Where’re your clothes kiddo?”

“I don’t know.” Another boat sank accompanied by dramatic sound effects.

Leonard sighed. “Stay here, okay? Start rinsing off the crayon.”

He could hear her humming to herself as he walked down the hall, finding her underwear, pants, one sock, shirt, and the other sock strewn about leading him back to the mess of paint and newspaper and glue. He’d clean it up later.

Joanna looked up when he re-entered the bathroom. She still hadn’t even gotten her hair wet.

“C’mon, let’s get rinsed off.”

She dumped a boatload of water on her head in response and grinned at him, careful to keep the water out of her eyes.

“Daddy I’m a water dragon—look—AAAAAAHHHHH!” She plunged the boat back into the water.

“A water dragon huh? Scrub your arms please,”

“Yeah I’m sinking boats.”

“Uh oh. What’s going to happen to the people?”

She was, at least, also trying to rub off the crayon.

“We’re going to eat them!”

“Eat them?” he asked, standing up off the lid of the toilet to look for her favorite soap under the sink. “Who’s going to eat them?”

“Me and my friends.” She continued making dramatic sound effects and mock screaming. There was going to be water all over the floor. The soap bottle was way in the back and Leonard bit back a curse as he smacked his head trying to extricate himself. It was decorated with a distinctive galaxy pattern and Joanna gasped as he brought it out.

“Okay stand up and hold your hand out.”

Boats forgotten, she held out cupped hands and watched in awe as shimmery turquoise soap puddled into a nickel-sized dollop.

“Wash yourself up now.” Then we’ll wash your hair.” He replaced the bottle under the sink. Joanna set about covering herself in suds and laughed when she managed to make enough to hold in a full palm.

“Time to rinse off.”

The bubbles floated on top of the water for the brief moment Joanna allowed them before slapping and splashing them into oblivion. Leonard’s jeans were soaked from the knees down.

“Keep the water in the tub please. Are you ready to wash your hair or do you prefer to wash your face first?”

“My hair,” Joanna said.

She was so tiny she could lay down fully stretched out. Her hair floated in a cloud above her head and she kept her hands up by her face, fearful of getting water in her eyes. Water streamed down her back when she sat back up. Leonard dipped his hands in the bath water and worked the shampoo between his palms for a moment. She scooted over so her back was to him and returned to drowning her boats as he lathered her hair.

“Look at your hair, JoJo.”

She brought a hand up to feel where he had spiked her hair with suds.

“Where? Show me!”

“Turn around and look in the mirror.”

Her eager baby face peered up at him and he leaned over to clear a line of sight. She laughed and he couldn’t help chuckling with her.

“What do you think? Should we leave it like that?”

“No,” she said seriously, “it’s too wet.”

“Would it make your clothes all wet?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, time to rinse.”

When she sat up again, he reached down to pull out the plug and she whined.

“Joanna.”

“I wasn’t done . . .”

“We have to wash your face now and you said you don’t like to do it in the bath. I’m going to turn on the shower, ready?”

She scooted forward to be out of the path of the spray and covered her face. With her eyes tightly shut she finished rinsing her hair and then stepped out of the spray again.

Leonard reassured her, “I’ve got your towel right here. You just have to get your face wet.”

She held her nose and scrunched her face up before sticking it into the spray for all of half a second before she was retreating, free hand flailing for the towel and mumbling.

“It’s right here, no rush,” Leonard said.

Joanna wiped her eyes with great care and accepted the soapy washcloth he had prepared. She was methodical in wiping only the very edges of her face around her eyebrows, in a circle around her mouth, then her nose, cheeks, and the forehead.

“Rinse one more time now.”

She scrunched up her face again and screeched when he was a second too slow with the dry towel for her to wipe her eyes.

“You’re okay,” he told her calmly. She glared at him in a manner that clearly conveyed that he had no idea what he was talking about. “You ready to get dry now?”

The bath was almost empty but she shook her head anyway and grabbed the boat again, dunking it under the shower spray and laughing to herself, drowning the passengers in a whole new way, he assumed.

“Jo, are you listening? You have one minute to finish playing while I go get your clean clothes and then you have to get out, okay? You hear me?”

“One minute,” she repeated dutifully and he resisted another sigh.

Her drawers had long since lost and semblance of organization or folding. She preferred to dress herself and refused to cooperate with picking out clothes from their folded appearance, and he didn’t have the time or energy to refold her clothes on the daily. If they were wrinkled, so be it. At least her underwear stayed mostly in the top two drawers, mixed in with the socks. He grabbed shirts and random and picked up a pair of mostly clean pants from the floor.

“Okay Jo. Minute’s up.”

She stared up at him from a mostly full tub. “No, the tubs not empty!”

Funny how it didn’t drain so well when she replaced the plug.

“Doesn’t matter, we agreed, one minute.” Leonard reached around and slammed the faucet twice until the shower shut off. It was sticking again, he needed to look into getting it fixed.

“What about my boats?” Joanna whined.

“You can play with them again tomorrow.” Leonard told her, and smiled at her long-suffering sigh, too big for her tiny four-year-old body. “Out you get little lady, it’s time to get you dry.”


End file.
